Widely circulated online articles also question lithium batteries: lithium batteries are highly toxic, short-lived, and easy to explode, and the conditions for use are harsh; they cannot be recycled and cause huge environmental pressure… Is this really the case? We interviewed many industry experts to find out the truth.
Are lithium batteries highly toxic and dangerous?
Response: Lithium batteries do not contain highly toxic substances and the impact is far less than that of lead-acid batteries
“Lithium-ion batteries and lithium batteries are strictly different in concept.” Wang Fang, chief expert in the field of power batteries at the China Automotive Technology Research Center, secretary-general of the Battery Testing and Application Technology Alliance, and senior engineer, said that lithium batteries usually refer to batteries with lithium metal or lithium alloy as the negative electrode and non-aqueous electrolyte. Lithium-ion batteries refer to rechargeable secondary batteries. The negative electrode does not use metallic lithium, and relies on the movement of lithium ions between the positive and negative electrodes to work. However, in daily life, people are accustomed to simply referring to lithium-ion batteries as lithium batteries or lithium electricity.
It is understood that most of the new energy vehicles (including pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles) currently promoted in my country use lithium-ion batteries, of which lithium iron phosphate accounts for 80%-90%, and ternary lithium batteries have also begun to be used on a large scale in passenger cars.
In response to the claim that lithium batteries are “highly toxic and dangerous goods” pointed out in the online article, Wang Fang refuted that compared with traditional batteries such as lead-acid, nickel-chromium, and nickel-hydrogen batteries, lithium batteries do not produce any toxic and harmful heavy metal elements and substances such as lead, mercury, and cadmium, and are relatively less polluting. And its electrolyte is an organic solvent and lithium salt, most of which are non-toxic or low-toxic; but the decomposition or hydrolysis products of lithium batteries are hydrofluoric acid and other fluorine-containing compounds, which are corrosive and toxic.
Regarding the “highly toxic lithium battery theory”, Liu Haojie, a researcher-level senior engineer at the 18th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group, said that lithium-ion batteries themselves do not contain highly toxic substances, and the carbon at the negative electrode and the metal oxide at the positive electrode are basically non-toxic. Since lithium-ion batteries belong to a sealed system, they will not be exposed to these substances during normal use. “In any case, the impact is much smaller than the lead-acid batteries that are currently the most widely used.”
